Sunday, February 09, 2014

Nintendo news round-up

Since my last post, I just kept collecting links to more and more news stories rather than being able to write a coherent article around them. So here is a rundown of what had happened in the world of console gaming in the past two weeks with some highly opinionated commentary at the end.

The main theme: enhancing the quality of life through entertainment. The key word is health, Mr. Iwata says. Citing a flood of wearable devices already on the market, he says Nintendo is trying out something completely new: non-wearables to monitor your health. (...) For those of you wondering what “non-wearables” for health means, here’s the one clue he’s giving out for today: it’s not necessarily something you will use in the living room

As if to save Ninty's grace in these troubled times, rumours of the company's next-next-gen plans surfaced. 'Nintendo Fusion' is supposed to be a project that, for the first time, would wholly integrate handheld and home consoles. And each would be packing quite a punch, according to the rumours which were later spread by another site.

This feels so much like 2005. And one thing is certain: Nintendo is working on their next-next-gen consoles. As soon as one console leaves the research and development labs, its successor hits the blueprints. Whether this is the case for Microsoft and Sony remains to be seen, though. All I can comment on regarding this specific rumour is that Nintendo did announce a much tighter integration of home console and handheld development. But let us briefly examine Sony's and Microsoft's fortune before summing up.

So what will happen? In a recent opinion piece for a German industry magazine, I noted that I was disappointed with Nintendo because of their uninspired offering so far. Because Nintendo should be able to win this generation hands-down. They won the last generation by a landslide and their new system is completely backwards-compatible (unlike those of its competitors).

Most importantly, though, Nintendo is swimming in money. According to analysts, the company has $4.4 billion in cash reserves. That might be enough to buy a third party publisher like Ubisoft or Capcom. So why have they not beefed up the Wii U to be at least on par with Xbox One and PS4? It is not as if those two are a huge leap from their respective predecessors. Or why have Nintendo not paid Rockstar to get GTA V generation-exclusive on Wii U? There are certainly missed opportunities here. But things are far from over for Nintendo.

14 comments:

Hi Falafel! Nice you are back! I Good article! :-) i watched the Last presentation of Nintendos PR and there was something i Don t get Out of my Head. The Picture where they showed the "non wearable Hardware" ( http://wiiux.de/neuigkeiten/3841-nintendo-eroeffnet-sich-neues-geschaeftsmodell ) on this picture they showed a glasses too like a visor. We all now about Sony s VR and the oculus Drift. So the mean they do Not want to make this. But what if its a clue for a 3D Display without Glasses ? A Display falafal so often was Talking about ? Like on the end of this Old Video : http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XIOOeP0BUI0 so for Not only Fitness, Games too ! What if all Nintendo Hardware could Stream with it ? Even the Feature Hardware with more power ! It would bring Nintendo back to be number One ! Think about it !!! ��Best regards Sebastian

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